About Me

I believed that stuff we were taught in high school back in the days before "Social Studies" supplanted history, geography and civics.
I really don't want to talk only about political things. I really want merely to be left alone to follow my own way.

Log

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

I have an objection to the concept of "Hate Crimes" that I have never heard expressed by a talk radio pundit.

We are all supposed to be equal under the law. Now the Federal Government is telling me that if I am assaulted or killed, I am less important than others because I am not of a protected group. Since I am not gay and I do not belong to one of the Liberal's recognized protected minority groups, I don't matter.

It makes me wonder. If I claim to be gay so the police will pay attention to crimes where I would be the victim, would I have to prove it? Or would they just take my word? And what if the perpetrator just thought I was gay, even though I am not, do I still get special treatment? So many decisions. How about making the law simpler rather than more complex? Assault, battery, murder are crimes - no matter who the victim is.

And if this law is so important, why did you need to sneak it in on a military budget bill? Why not just vote on it as a law? Why must the Liberals alway lie?

I wanted to share with you an interesting section of an editorial by Darryl Robert Schoon over at Kitco Commentaries. Note that the system he is talking about at the end is not Capitalism, but that bastard child of Socialism and Capitalism together, wherein the Government scratches the back of the elites, Progressivism, and its alter ego, true Fascism.

WHO BENEFITS FROM THE FRAUD OF PAPER MONEY

The substitution of paper money for gold and silver has always been imposed by those who govern upon those governed; and, in the US it was done so illegally. The US Constitution explicitly defines the US dollar in silver, not paper money. The current regime of fiat money in the US is not only a monetary abomination, it is de jure unconstitutional.

The imposition of fiat money in the US was done without the consent of the governed. However, those who govern approved it. This is because the advantages of paper money accrue to those who rule; and it is in their interests, not society’s, that paper fiat money becomes the coin of the realm.

The disadvantages of paper money are borne by society-at-large, i.e. entrepreneurs, workers, businesses, retirees, savers, etc. who pay retail for the credit dispensed wholesale to those better connected, e.g. are you able to leverage your investments 50:1 as can JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, etc.; and, can you to carry your underwater investments at full book value and borrow against them as it does Wall Street? And were you bailed out last year as were the banks?

I have always been amazed at those who identify with a system that primarily serves the needs of others and only incidentally theirs. I can only conclude that such identification is symptomatic of low self-esteem, as self-interest alone would dictate otherwise.

We are now headed towards a rendering so extreme that such divisions will become clear and perhaps the many will finally cease identifying with a system that benefits the few closest to the fountainhead of credit while penalizing the many farther downstream which usually includes them.

Modern economics is a sophisticated Ponzi-scheme cross-pollinated with a shell game designed for the advantage of government, banks and those at the front of the line wherein money is created out of thin air to be loaned to others who will in the end be indebted beyond their means to repay and whose economic futures will be destroyed by the inevitable confluence of the bankers’ compounding interest and their constant inflation of the money supply.

Just as I am astounded by those who would willingly, no, enthusiastically cede their autonomy and power to a massive central government in the naive belief that only honest altruistic people would climb the ladder to the top of their government; and that that government will truly lookout for their individual welfare.

Friday, October 9, 2009

I don't usually hit twice on blog subjects, but this one astounds me. I may will never look at the Nobel Peace Prize the same again. There is no way this one was earned. It was merely awarded. President Obama himself has acknowledged that. I can't get this out of my head.It is not like I didn't know that politics affected the award of the Nobel Peace Prize any more than it does at the Academy Awards. At some level I thought there was some honesty in the award. I had thought of it as loosened standards, not total fraud. Had they waited until the end of his term, until he had actually accomplished something, or maybe even a couple years into his term, I would have thought 'maybe'. But this is on a par with the Philadelphia 1904 elections where 100% of the voters voted for the Democrat Party in one precinct only to have a great number of people say "I didn't". Here there is no doubt. The Nobel Committee was just a little too fast on the award to retain credibility.

That is the thing about integrity, a little breech is as bad as a big breech.

Many times Liberals will say that you and I are brainwashed by talk show hosts. The failure of Liberal talk shows and networks, like Air America, to survive is attributable to this misunderstanding. What they miss is that we want to listen to people who confirm our feelings or at the very least expose us to new information that is consistent with that which we already know to be true. That, and no one likes to be told that they are stupid (Randi Rhodes - you catch more flies with honey than vinegar)

From time to time, I hear things on Glenn Beck and think "I wish I had said that". Sometimes I am proud to say that these are things that I have been saying or screaming for a while. Tonight is one of those. For a long time I have been saying that "Illegal aliens are the new slave class". That, and that fifty (or less) years from now we will pay the price for this slavery again. Like any slavery, this is not a good or moral thing.

And one more thing, The constant refrain that "these are jobs that Americans will not do" is wrong. These are things that Americans will not do for slave wages. True Capitalism is about contracts. The willing meeting of two parties. Slave labor distorts this contract. Not just for the slave, but for the person who must compete against the slave for his livelihood. This is true of the illegal immigrant and this is true of the Chinese manufactured products.

And why is it that the unions who are supposed to be for the worker are aiding and abetting the influx of this slave labor? It was the Democrats last time and it is they again who promote slavery.

President Barak Hussein Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize!Only two sitting presidents have been awarded a Nobel Prize, Woodrow Wilson* for keeping us out of World War One, and Teddy Roosevelt for - who remembers? Jimmy Carter had already left office when he received his for brokering that lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.And President Obama received his for gracing the world with his presence. The deadline for submissions was February 1st, a mere 11 days after he was sworn in.

*By the way, he later got us into WWI and imprisoned anyone who dissented about it - even at their own dinner table.

'By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. . . . The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.'- Lenin

On face, there are two types of inflation: Cost increase, and currency debasement. I have heard some say "We cannot be in inflation, the prices are going down, We must be in deflation." No, we are in stagflation and the prices are going down. Think of it as a fire sale. There is a certain amount of desperation to keep any kind of commerce going, but what is being sold is what is already in the pipeline. Little is being created. Nothing is being manufactured in this country. Few ships are on the high seas. The rail-yards sit empty and still. No wealth is being produced to back up the increase in currency. Indeed, the increase in currency is not reaching the people. Where is it?Just as "Cash for Clunkers" has been an empty promise (ask any auto dealer how many unpaid claims there have been, and the gov't claims to have spent all the cash), and TARP still sits 80% unspent. The reactions of the Chinese and OPEC to uncouple from (dump if you prefer) the dollar are based not on what our President has done, but on the promises of spending that he is making. Just as citizens are buying precious metals as a refuge from what is expected to come, our biggest overseas trading partners are hedging their bets - just in case. But where you or I may have a hundred thousand or two in cash assets, the Chinese and Saudis have trillions and if panic makes your portfolio shrink, think of theirs. They have a dilemma. If they do what the would honestly like to do and run screaming out the door, your hundred thousand would be worthless paper, but so would their trillions of FRNs. They have no choice but to exit gracefully. Lets hope that our people and politicians can wake up before they make that exit.But more, how do they make that exit? They must spend it (or do something that has been our exclusive province since the Second World War - provide international relief and foreign aid). Currency exchange just passes the buck (accidental pun), and leaves someone else holding the problem. So there is a glut and it requires more dollars to accomplish that same exchange. There is the inflation, and the problem. We, the United States and its President, Government, and bankers think of the dollar as our own. After all, it even has our name on it. But it has escaped our control and ownership. And when the Federal Reserve and the Treasury conspire to buy our own debt, it enters more Federal Reserve Notes into an already glutted system - over there, not here. We are a country lately of entitlement. Just as our people expect that the world owes them a living, so does our financial system. We have sent our earned wealth over to China, and the Mid East in the purchase of transient things. You know the gas is gone, and so are most Chinese goods you have ever bought. Now we are sending our unearned wealth. They have US Federal Reserve and Treasury notes, both of which are promises to pay later. we are going to pay them ... with what?

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

As I drive around the country taking pictures, I am noticing an odd phenomena.Everywhere I look, I see frantic, frenetic work tearing down our factories.Once these were symbols of our industriousness. Now there is some kind of coordinated hurry to make it all go away.Do you suppose that maybe the reason is to make sure that the American industry that has now relocated to China never comes back?Oh, yeah, this is the one my father managedduring my childhood; and the one where Ispent my college summers working,

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies...

The cultivation of palm oil damages the habitat of the apes of Sumatra.

* To Be fair, I am only dealing with the leading headlines. Time Magazine online did have a link to an editorial What if oil weren't priced in dollars? It stated:"Such a change wouldn't be unmitigated bad news for Americans."

Saturday, October 3, 2009

In the classic battle of the economists, I have long held a position favoring Jean-Baptiste Say and Say's Law which stated that in a free market society, goods and services are produced in exchange for other goods and services and that absent interference from power-hungry politicians and unscrupulous bankers, everything would ultimately balance in economics. (And even including them - there is a balance, however dishonest and unfair). Not would balance, must balance.

But there is a dark side to Say's Law stating that , saving, which he called hoarding, is irrational. It withdraws product from the equation, affecting the economy leaving an inequality that must be compensated for to restore balance. Left alone, this would be recession, underconsumption and its following unemployment. This is Keynes' paradox of thrift. Paradox because what is good for the individual is not similarly good for the economy as a whole.You, and I, must prepare for our futures. We must prepare for our old age and infirmity, and future needs. We can not retire and service our debt. This is the paradox of debt. Production is withdrawn from the economy not just to save, but also to pay down debt. This leaves an empty spot in our economy that must be accounted for. It is a mathematical certainty.

For many decades now, our masters, the bankers and politicians have sold us on a Keynesian treadmill. Not as a certain group that we call Liberals* have scolded us for, [over] consumption.No, rather it is as another group, the Progressives, true Liberals, have driven us to consumption beyond our means (through media and advertising); and when that is insufficient, they drive the government to consume as our proxy, the whole time chiding us for our individual profligacy. Still economics is a mathematics and as a mathematics, it is a science not an art - no matter how much they protest it to be. It must always balance ultimately. It is a mathematical certainty.

The problem arises from a presumption that any system be it Keynesian, Marxist, or any other humanly introduced system can see enough of the economic process from a remote observation control point to direct the economy in anything but a wrong direction wherever they should attempt to point it. This is an obvious vanity to believe that mere mortals can control an economy. This is not to say that they cannot affect an economy; nor even that it perforce must be totally bad. No, I am merely stating that since economics is an equality every change to the left side of the equation is met by our old buddy Newton "To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction". This is far more general than even Newton imagined. There will be an equal change on the right side of the equation. The economic changes caused by the meddling of the political governing class must in every class have their unintended consequences. It is a mathematical certainty.

The decades of Keynesian overspending have created their own paradox of debt. The holes in the road that the government borrowing tried to prevent will be met with a doubled hole when ultimately paid for - not just the original hole, but the one caused by the absence of substance generated at the time. This is why the recession in 1929, although smaller that the one in 1921 created a longer and deeper depression and why the current recession promises to be worse. We, as a society, have not yet learned to leave things alone. We have not yet learned to tend to ourselves and our families and trust the laws of mathematics to restore order and not self-serving politicians in far off Washington, DC. It IS a mathematical certainty.

*I say "we call Liberals", because their position is most often diametrically opposed to the "Liberals" in power, the Progressives. They are so wedded to a "them or us" mentality they do not objectively analyze the actions of the people on their supposed team. This is how we can have a cynical, self-serving, Chicago machine, Obama administration so adored by people who would never stand for 1% of that corruption from Republicans. Hence the women's groups support of the misogynistic Bill Clinton, or the environmentalists unquestioning support of President Obama's (and his wife's) flight(s) to Copenhagen this week is search of the elusive Chicago Olympics.